As the volume of data stored on personal computers becomes more and more important, external mobile storage devices, having portable and large capacity storage features, are provided to serve as auxiliary storage means. Such conventional storage devices are generally referred as external hard disks, media disks or media centers, and are connectable to personal computers for data transfer between the personal computer and the external storage device. They are usually used to store personal data such as pictures, audio and video files.
As is well known, these storage devices can be directly attached to a display device or a player so as to readily display or play the data stored in the storage device, for example when the data are of video, audio or picture type.
The existing storage devices allow mobility/portability of the content, so that the content is no longer only bound to the specific personal computer to which it was originally downloaded or received in another way.
However, the data stored are more vulnerable in the storage device than when they are stored in the personal computer. Indeed, the existing storage devices are generally deprived of content protection. Their small size further exposes them to risks of robbery. Accordingly, the content of the storage devices might be fraudulently copied or erased.
Further, the data stored in the storage devices tend to become more and more personal. Therefore, another concern with such storage devices is to ensure that only authorized users may access the data stored, and in particular that the access authorization be provided by the master user to which the storage device belongs.
There exist systems and methods widely implemented to protect content stored on external storage devices. These existing systems lie on complex processing of data and/or on complex identification infrastructure, such as password-based or biometrics identification infrastructures. Such approaches involve important costs and are reliant on user remembering passwords or identification information.